Cleanup & Remediation

  The Energy Department is refusing to say when two outstanding cleanup contracts might be awarded at the Idaho National Laboratory site, or why the contract procurements were delayed in the first place. DOE early last year awarded its primary five-year Idaho cleanup contract — worth about $1.4 billion — to the contractor team Fluor […]

A federal judge on Monday ordered that 1 metric ton of plutonium be removed from South Carolina, but did not set a schedule for that to happen. The state sued the Department of Energy and its semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration last year, claiming they had breached a 2003 agreement to by Jan. 1, 2016, […]

The Hanford Site’s waste tank farms were placed under a stop work order from late Monday afternoon until mid-Tuesday afternoon after a worker raised concerns about beryllium safety. The work stoppage, which was called by a single union employee, covered activities requiring beryllium controls or intrusive operations in the tank farms. Any employee can halt […]

The prime contractor at the Energy Department’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina illegally fired an employee in 2014 for cooperating with a congressionally led investigation into whistleblower retaliation at the site, according to DOE’s Office of Hearings and Appeals. The quasi-judicial Office of Hearings and Appeals (OHA) subsequently ordered Fluor-led Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS) […]

The prime contractor at the Energy Department’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina illegally fired an employee in 2014 for cooperating with a congressionally led investigation into whistleblower retaliation at the site, according to DOE’s Office of Hearings and Appeals. The quasi-judicial Office of Hearings and Appeals (OHA) subsequently ordered Fluor-led Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS) […]

Nuclear cleanup and waste treatment provider Perma-Fix Environmental Services on Wednesday reported a net loss of $13.99 million for 2016, but said the fourth quarter signaled a rebound in the business. The loss was a steep dive from a $1.9 million net loss in 2015. Net loss attributed to common stockholders also plunged from $1.1 […]

A federal judge on Monday ordered that 1 metric ton of plutonium be removed from South Carolina, but did not set a schedule for that to happen because she wants the Energy Department and the state – the two sides in a year-old lawsuit – to make that determination together over the next month. The […]

An advisory committee to the Savannah River Site is scheduled next week to discuss an international program that has previously sent, and is expected to continue sending, controversial shipments of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) from other countries to the Department of Energy facility in South Carolina. The SRS Citizens Advisory Board (CAB) will on March […]

Months before a state regulatory deadline, the Energy Department and its prime contractor at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant have stopped using emergency above-ground waste storage space at the mine, according to a Monday regulatory filing. “On February 9, 2017, [DOE and Nuclear Waste Partnership] reconfigured the TRU [transuranic] mixed waste in storage in the Waste […]

Cleanup of the former uranium enrichment facilities at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Piketon, Ohio, would slide into the 2030s under a new demolition plan DOE and site remediation contractor Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth are discussing internally. According to the plan obtained by Weapons Complex Morning Briefing, the agency and Fluor-BWXT would delay demolition of Portsmouth’s […]

An advisory committee to the Savannah River Site is scheduled next week to discuss an international program that has previously sent, and is expected to continue sending, controversial shipments of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) from other countries to the Department of Energy facility in South Carolina. The SRS Citizens Advisory Board (CAB) will on March […]

Nuclear cleanup services provider Perma-Fix Environmental Services on Wednesday reported a net loss of $13.99 million for 2016, but said the fourth quarter signaled a rebound in the company’s business. The loss was a steep dive from a $1.9 million net loss in 2015. Net loss attributed to common stockholders plunged from $1.1 million to […]

Ohio’s U.S. Senate delegation this week formally invited newly minted Energy Secretary Rick Perry to tour the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Piketon, Ohio, where the Energy Department is weighing big changes for a uranium cleanup that could take much longer than expected. “We would like to formally invite you to Piketon, Ohio, to see […]

The Hanford Site’s waste tank farms were placed under a stop work order from late Monday afternoon until mid-Tuesday afternoon after a worker raised concerns about beryllium safety. The work stoppage, which was called by a single union employee, covered activities requiring beryllium controls or intrusive operations in the tank farms. Any employee can halt work […]

A federal judge on Monday ordered that 1 metric ton of plutonium be removed from South Carolina, but did not set a schedule for that to happen. The state sued the Department of Energy and its semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration last year, claiming they had breached a 2003 agreement to by Jan. 1, 2016, […]

The Energy Department’s Cold War nuclear-cleanup budget would rise more than 5 percent in fiscal 2018 to the highest inflation-adjusted level in nearly 10 years, if a federal budget proposed Thursday by the Trump administration becomes law. The White House proposed a roughly $6.5 billion budget for DOE’s Office of Environmental Management (EM) for the budget […]

CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation Co. (CHPRC) and Mission Support Alliance expect to cut up to 300 jobs at the Hanford Site by the end of the fiscal year as two key cleanup projects near completion. CHPRC, which plans to eliminate up to 250 jobs, told workers Wednesday it expects some involuntary layoffs as part of […]

The Energy Department could soon revise an Obama administration decision that bartering government-owned uranium to pay for nuclear cleanup at the Portsmouth Site in Piketon, Ohio, does not harm the domestic uranium market, a March 9 regulatory filing shows. “The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is beginning the process to consider a new Secretarial Determination covering potential […]

Demolition has resumed on the Hanford Site’s Plutonium Finishing Plant, more than a month after a radiation spread was discovered on Jan. 27. In another key step forward toward demolishing the Department of Energy plant, external power was shut off on March 5. “It’s the first time in 60 years that the PFP Facility has […]

Eight members of Ohio’s delegation to the House of Representatives on Monday urged new Energy Secretary Rick Perry  to visit the department’s uranium enrichment decommissioning project at Portsmouth. This is the latest of several invitations Perry has received from lawmakers to take an up close and personal view of DOE’s cleanup of its Cold War nuclear complex. […]

The Tri-City Development Council (TRIDEC) in Washington state has selected an aide to Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) to serve as its vice president of federal programs. The vice president acts as a conduit between Hanford Site-area communities and the U.S. Congress and other officials in Washington, D.C., securing funding for the Department of Energy facility […]

Washington state’s two U.S. senators are urging new Energy Secretary Rick Perry to continue the efforts started by his predecessor to better protect Hanford Site workers from chemical vapors. “Nothing less than a complete commitment to safety at Hanford is acceptable,” Democrat Sens. Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray said Thursday in a letter to Perry. […]

The Environmental Protection Agency could clear the Energy Department to keep disposing of transuranic waste at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant by mid-July, according to a recent regulatory filing. Every five years, under the federal law that created the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), EPA must recertify that DOE is complying with the environmental laws governing […]

By next week, the Energy Department and Washington River Protection Solutions must let the state of Washington know if they can safely inspect the inside of the leaky double-shell tank they just emptied at the Hanford Site. On Feb. 15, DOE tank farms contractor Washington River Protection Solutions (WRPS) told the Washington Department of Ecology […]

The Energy Department and contractor Nuclear Waste Partnership have now buried most of the radioactive waste that was stranded above ground at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant three years ago, clearing out much-needed storage space for waste shipments slated to arrive from other DOE sites next month. Since the department and its WIPP prime resumed waste […]

CB&I AREVA MOX Services, the contractor managing construction of the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility near Aiken, S.C., said in a new letter to the National Nuclear Security Administration that the agency is attempting to terminate the project through a campaign of consistent obstruction. NS&D Monitor obtained the March 8 letter, a response to the […]

South Carolina and the federal government are in talks on a potential settlement for a lawsuit in which the state alleged the government breached an agreement by not processing plutonium through the Savannah River Site’s Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility. South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson in February 2016 sued the Energy Department, then-Energy Secretary […]

With the first quarter of his tenure as president and chief executive officer just about behind him, Rex Geveden of BWX Technologies told Weapons Complex Morning Briefing on Wednesday the company he’s led since January intends to remain a major player in every DOE market it serves. “I can’t imagine any reason we would exit that market,” Geveden said […]

CB&I AREVA MOX Services, the contractor managing construction of the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility near Aiken, S.C., said in a new letter to the National Nuclear Security Administration that the agency regularly obstructs MOX construction in an effort to terminate the project. NS&D Monitor obtained the March 8 letter, a response to the NNSA’s […]

A federal judge dismissed Tuesday part of South Carolina’s lawsuit in which it alleged the federal government had breached an agreement with the state by not processing plutonium through the Savannah River Site’s Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility. Specifically, U.S. District Judge J. Michelle Childs dismissed the state’s assertion that the government’s failure to meet the […]